


without words

by orphan_account



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, M/M, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unresolved Romantic Tension, gratuitous descriptions of dan's hands bc why not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 09:34:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18518734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Sean is warm inside, melting; Danton makes him feel like he just swallowed the sun whole.





	without words

**Author's Note:**

> guys this has literally been in the works since december 2018 bc im the worst, objectively but it is FINALLY finished! 
> 
> also, i didn’t think any archive warnings applied, but it does talk a little about sean using alcohol/cigarettes as a coping mechanism and there's also mentions of death/dying, so please approach with caution! stay safe and if there's anything else you think i need to add, or put stronger warnings on, let me know!! 
> 
> but with that being said, please enjoy :)

I.  
"I've been trying to tell you that I love you."

Danton blinks at him, slowly, as if he didn't hear. Couldn't, although Sean practically said it in his ear and it was loud enough that they are both afraid Anders and Charlie and Jake might have heard from the kitchen. 

Danton shivers a little (even though it isn't cold) and his dark eyes look into Sean and out the other side of him, his gaze strong and unwavering; eyes filled with something Sean doesn't want to begin to decipher, lips pressed in a thin line. 

Sean feels the little curve of his mouth dip down and then even lower, until he's frowning and can feel frustrated tears build up in his eyes. He feels his insides wrap around themselves and he wants to laugh, wants to cry, wants to shatter into a million tiny, miniscule pieces. But instead, he buries it to fit under all of the other curses and complaints about Danton that line his heart, where no one else can see them.

He steps away from Danton so that they're no longer pressed together, shoulder to wrist. 

"Sean," Danton is saying, voice rough like broken glass. He doesn't look at him anymore. "Wait, I-." 

Sean watches Danton's lips curl around every letter and pucker with each word. The sounds pecking like a bird at Sean's skull - its beak pulling at his temples, tap, tap, taping at the surface of his skin; he feels the pain of those words and his breath is too short, as if his lungs have popped and deflated and he'll never be able breathe again and-

Charlie and Jake laugh as they return to the living room, Anders behind them cradling a pack of beer in his arms, hooting. They jostle each other and shout friendly insults, trying to make the other fall over. 

(And if Danton was turning to look at Sean again, he turns away now, sharply. As if it were expressly forbidden for Danton to look anywhere near Sean at all.) 

Danton laughs at the sight and Sean joins in. Sean's laugh sounds raw, like it scraped its way up his diaphragm and burned its way out. It is fine, though, because Danton's eyes are no longer dull but shining with countless breathtaking stars. 

 

II.  
They don't talk about this either.

It's before the second time Sean tries to say something and after the first - at least a month after. Long enough that Danton's gotten over the breakup with his ex, Ana, and feels nothing at all. Long enough that Danton doesn't think he has to say anything about the girl, about any girl. 

Sean used to think he had to approve of them. He didn't have to. Sean barely noticed when the girl changed, so there wasn't anything to approve of.

Sean lies on his bed across from Danton. Danton is there, looking lanky and slender; his hand like a mastery of light and fragile bone, the joints locking and loosen, the veins sticking out blue as he turns his phone over and over in them. 

They've been talking. Sometimes Sean doesn't know what they're saying, he can't think back that far. Everything out of his mouth is true, but Sean is never really thinking, can never really think properly when Danton is there. At least not when they're seventeen - it is just too fucking hard. Things become hazy, his mind becoming one-tracked whenever Danton is involved. 

Everything is too strange. He looks at Danton and he feels stupid and he feels reckless, more reckless and more stupid than ever. The kind of reckless and stupid can't separate himself from. It's always a part of Sean, and then Danton is lying there on his bed and they're talking and it's too much, so Sean says things like 'I don't like you' and 'sometimes I can't stand to be around you'. Things he doesn't mean. That aren't true.

And he looks at Danton, he looks at Danton so much that Danton looks back with heat in his eyes and it just makes Sean more - more this, more that, more reckless and more stupid and more more more everything. 

They just keep looking. So there's more than more, and then more after that.

"How do you want to die, Danton?" Sean asks, when he remembers what's already been said.

Stupid fucking things. Stupid fucking things for the sake of things. Just stupid.

And Danton answers quickly, looking back at his hands, his lips shiny and carefully wet. "Surprised," he says. So there's more than more, and more images in Sean's head than there used to be.

"Really?"

"Yes."

And then Sean, being reckless, smiles. "I could oblige."

"You could,” Danton laughs at that, practically cackles and Sean grins back, a wild little thing. 

Like talking to a guy, and that's stupid, and that's also reckless, and more, and ten thousand times more. Sean is warm inside, melting; Danton makes him feel like he just swallowed the sun whole. He needs a cigarette or some of Anders whiskey; that's why his eyes can leave Danton's, just for a second. Just one second to look at where that whiskey hides at the edge under Ander's bed. It's amber and beautiful and not allowed.

"Why?" he asks, thinking about it. Danton slowly stops laughing, his voice now slightly breathless. 

"For the look on my face," Danton informs him, and he doesn't mean it but he sounds like he sounds when he's trying to convince someone he's right. "I'm sure you'd find it priceless."

Sean hears himself say, "All right. If I don't, you owe me"

Something, something. 

He thinks of anything, anything to place at the end of the sentence but then Danton is laughing again and Sean doesn't care. Stupid things. Reckless things. Maybe it's good that no one can predict him, not even the three people that know him best; later it damns him, but for now it makes him entertaining; nobody forgets Sean. He makes sure they can't forget him. He does things like shame them, laugh at them. He kisses them.

He kisses Danton. It's a thing they don't talk about. Never.

He comes across the little space between their beds and he tries to compare Danton to whiskey, but it's not like that. Danton tastes like everything all at once and Sean wants to engrave the feeling of Danton's lips on his forever. Their lips brush together so firm and it's like they both thought it would happen, but Danton makes a little noise like a whine and Sean rumbles down deep in his throat and for a moment someone's mouth opens and their tongues touch wetly like little corners, a little pocket of some strong draught which means Sean will be drunk on this for the next seven hours. 

Danton touches him softly with one finger, right on his throat. Like he's feeling for something there. Sean touches him back with his hands so strong, arms and the little shivery ribs below Danton's heart and then the sides of his face and they keep kissing and tasting and feeling and it ruins Sean's life. It ruins his life forever.

They just don't talk about it.

Sean pulls away, feeling that little bit of Danton on his mouth, can taste that taste all over his tongue. He feels like he's vibrating out of his skin, his lips on fire and he wants to feel more of Danton. Wants to feel him everywhere. 

Sean disappears that night and he doesn't say anything about it until it's too late; Danton doesn't even ask why he did it or if he'll do it again. It's just something that happened and maybe happens again, but that night and the next night and for many nights after, Sean isn't sure that it will. 

Danton looks like he didn't change, he's the same he's always been, but Sean is never the same Sean again after that.

 

III.  
There's evidence he's not the same. If people thought about it, they could look, but Sean doesn't think about it & there's no clue that anyone else should, so nobody does. Charlie doesn't. Jake doesn't. If Danton does, he says nothing; he doesn't care about it. Danton is Danton. Sean hates it. Sean loves it. Some days he listens to Danton go on and on and he agrees and they make plans together, hang out together, as if they are almost the same. 

But they aren't.

Sean is too wild. He goes fully wild after seventeen. Eighteen and nineteen he has to be kept an eye on - he can only do what he's told, specifically avoid what he's told to avoid, and everything else is fair game. He likes to be dangerous. A rabid dog. Dangerous Sean can't be bothered by all the stupid fucking things in his life that don't fit right. 

Except Danton. 

It seems like Sean will always be bothered by Danton who will never fit right because he wants ink Danton with marks that say his name and all of the ways he might have put them there. He can't help but to look at Danton and smile, smiling because it makes him happy to think like that. Makes him happy to think about teeth and love bites and stupid reckless stupid more and Danton sees him smiling. And his face transforms, grin splitting his face as he stares back. 

Beautiful. 

 

IV.  
He takes Danton on the back of his motorcycle and all he can feel is Danton. The wind is in his nose and his eyes and in his ears so he can't hear anything, all he can focus on is Danton, and it's reckless and stupid and more and more as every day passes.

More more more fucking more.

Danton puts his arms tight around Sean - this is the only time he does. So Sean goes fast and Danton holds on tighter and laughs. It's silvery, breathless and carefree and Sean wants to hear it for the rest of this life. He feels invincible, unstoppable, like he could take on the whole world right now and come out on top. 

Just three or four times or however many rides they take, Danton gets tired and rest his face right there between Sean's shoulder blades. Sean feels it right on his spine, like a kiss or someone's tongue right on the skin, and he just thinks about it whenever he sees Danton after that. 

At breakfast or when they play cards or when Brad says that name: Danton. What's Danton up to? Where's Danton gone to? Sean just feels his arms, feels the touch of him surrounding Sean, and he feels light enough to fly. 

 

V.  
One night, he and Danton stay up late. Something in the air tells them they should be sleeping, like the something that lets them know that today isn't forever. Maybe some canine sense of how to live, how to process each other, everybody, life in general. 

Danton sits across from Sean at the little breakfast table, looking so tired and soft and-

And Sean wants to kiss him. Again. 

Sean looks at him. Danton looks back at Sean. They share a plate of spaghetti. Sean is so close to falling asleep but he doesn't want this moment to end; it feels frail, like one wrong movement and the comfort they've built together will snap into pieces. 

"Let me recite a poem for you," Danton says, voice honeyed from sleepiness.

Sean just hums at him, too tired to respond with words. He nods and leans forward to rest his cheek in his palm, lighting a cigarette and raising a brow when Danton gives him a look. Danton rolls his eyes but starts talking, anyway. 

Sean watches Danton and misses the whole first half of the poem because of the way he was studying the planes and angles and lines of Danton's face. 

(Later he tries to make up what it could've been, but all he can picture is Danton laughing, eyes crinkled with happiness and sleeping with Danton pressed close, always too close when they sleep in fields and borrowed floors and in each other's beds. Just Danton, Danton, Danton and all the things he wanted to talk about when they had time to talk about anything.) 

"Death could drop from the dark," Danton is mumbling, "as easily as song- but song only dropped, like a blind man's..."

He's quiet for a minute. Sean hears all those seconds, counts them against Danton's heartbeat - odd how he knows when it speeds, when it slows. And he knows Danton is doing the same. The quiet things. The ridiculous things that they do because they know how to do them.

"Like a blind man's?" Sean prompts, gently. His eyes come back to Danton, he'll always come back, and he feels that sick drop in his belly when their eyes meet and they watch each other and know what the other is thinking.

It's just a habit now. 

"Like a blind man's dreams on the sand by dangerous tides, like a..."

Danton pauses, a tiny waver to his voice; something caught in the back of his throat he reaches for the cigarette. Comes forward just so that his fingers rest near Sean's mouth, fingertips pressed lightly against Sean's lips, hanging there a moment. "Her kisses where a serpent hides."

(Sean’s done that to him too, with Danton's stupid lollipops. He'll put his finger right between those lips and fish out the jolly rancher or a melting chocolate piece.)

Danton takes the cigarette and he takes forever to do it, because he's feeling Sean breathe against the tip of his finger.

He just holds the cigarette. He puts it in his mouth but he doesn't breathe it in.

"Any day now," Sean draws out lightly and Danton laughs around the place where their lips would've met.

Sean wants this so badly he aches for it. He can't have it. 

He moves abruptly, pushing his chair back and shadering the moment. Danton drops the cigarette and holds up his hands to say wait. No. No.

"What are you doing?" Danton whispers.

"I don't know," Sean says even lower, and he stands, stepping towards Danton, who tilts his head up. For a second Sean really thinks he might, that they might do it again, he might even say it one more time. 

But their arms just brush when Danton stands up also. Then they both breathe out because of the feeling that something is missing and Sean curses and then leans forward to wrap his arms around Danton, he presses up against Danton chest to chest and hip to hip and something to something and everything. He feels Danton's arms slip around him holding him close. It's too much. 

He pulls away. Clears his throat. "I'm going to bed. Goodnight." He practically runs out of the room, runs out but he can still feel Danton there. Always.

 

VI.  
It's easier once he's tried twice. He tries twice. I love you.

I love you, Danton.

I hate you.

"I hate you," mouths Sean, when Danton brings Kate into the flat. The words are so easy. They fit right into the rim of the glass when he puts it to his lips. Then he takes a big sip, and the liquid burns so hard that he forgets just for a second, until the glass is back down and there she is again. 

Her perfect blonde head and her perfect pink lips. She's holding Danton by the arm and she's smaller than him, but she's also big, she's so fucking big. Sean can't see anything but Kate when she walks across the room in her perfect outfit.

Torey says something to Sean about being drunk and Sean just laughs, he laughs loud and if sounds mean. Danton furrows his brow at him and tries to introduce Kate again but Sean can't stop laughing. 

He just takes another drink instead.

Kate tries to say hello when David pours her something too, but Sean pretends he can't hear her. Nothing anyone says gets through to him except if it's about Danton. 

Danton likes Kate.

Everyone thinks she's wonderful. It's about time Danton has a girlfriend.

Sean grinds his teeth together until they sound like they're about to crack inside his mouth. He looks like a grenade, seconds away from blowing up if Danton so much as thinks about letting go of the pin. 

He wants to talk to Danton, wants to talk about everything. 

But that's not a thing that they do.

Not now, not tomorrow, not a week from now, and definitely not in a year.

VII.  
Another night they fight. 

"I'm sorry," Danton tells Sean. Sean feels Danton's thin, long fingers in his hair. Touching him so softly, smoothing the unruly mess of hair from his forehead. 

It was over something meaningless, so small it doesn't even matter. But Sean is tired. 

He looks at Danton so hard, looks so hard and harder and recklessly open, and he dares Danton with his eyes to try and show him how sorry he really is. 

Danton leans forward and he breathes and Sean can smell him, all that warmth hidden up deep in him where it couldn't get out even when it was supposed to. Even when he wants it to. 

Dangerous Sean gets what he wants, but he never gets Danton, not ever, and he's looking in Danton's eyes now and thinking about it, about all those things he would take if he could. Numbered one through a thousand and maybe they can be real if he imagines them enough. Danton breathes out more, warming Sean up with the dream of tasting that breath again. Then all he does is press a tiny kiss to Sean's forehead. Danton's breath hitches when he pulls away and he's looking down so expectantly, but it's not enough. Never. Never ever enough.

Couldn't be.

Sean looks down, staring at Danton's stupid ripped jeans and the white trainers that are somehow always white, immaculate and as perfect as the person who's wearing them. 

Sean wishes he could give Danton what he wanted, he would if knew how to offer it. Sometimes he feels like he's going to burst with how much he loves Danton, the feeling is bigger than himself and he doesn't know how to handle it anymore.

Sean is never the same, it's the one thing that changes him more than anything else. 

"You don't get it," Sean says and Danton doesn't remember it later. "You just don't fucking get it."

VIII.  
Sean has to go on vacation once to try and not think about it.

Lots to not think about. It's hard. We'll, no. Not, really. 

Guys and things.

He picks them up and he can't tell one from the other.

That's what he's doing when he tells Danton he's in Miami. Just all alone, where his mom and dad used to live, but they don't during the summer. He brings guys back there and he smokes so much he always smells like ash; smells bitter and crude. Danton probably would have hated it. 

Just to try and not think about it.

To say nothing at all.


End file.
